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The bulletin of Atlanta University, 1903 no. 134

The bulletin of Atlanta University

NUMBER 134. ATLANTA, GEORGIA. FEBRUARY, 1903. Suggestions. It is important to teach a Negro to work, so that he may earn a living. It is more important to teach him to think, so that he may want to earn a living. A thoughtful mind with unskilled hands is no less likely to earn a living than skilled hands owned by a thoughtless mind. Earning a living for the body is easier when earning a living for something more than the body is aimed at. The Negro who craves books, magazines, and pictures for his home is much more likely to possess a tight roof, a full pantry, and comfortable clothes than one who does not. Some Negroes are better fitted to earn a living with the brain than with the hand. Is it not worth while to teach such to work with their brain? About 2500 Negroes in the United States have had brain enough to work through and graduate from a college course. Statistics show that the college-bred Negroes of this country own on the average $2400 worth of real estate, assessed valuation, and probably $5000 worth of property all told, on the average. It would appear from these statistics that college-bred Negroes, as a class, are not paupers or loafers. Teaching a Negro to earn a living for himself, either by hand or brain, is a good thing. Teaching him how to help others to earn a living is a better thing. Over eighty per cent of the college-bred Negroes of America have found permanent employment in teaching and the professions. A single college class of seven members, graduated from Atlanta University, were found soon after their graduation to be helping as many as 2000 children and adults on their way to a better self-support. A single graduate of Atlanta University has improved the condition of a group of 3000 Negro farmers so that they now own property to an aggregate amount of three quarters of a million dollars. With such results as these, is it not worth while to support the higher education of the Negro? For statement of the work of Atlanta University see last page. WHAT FORTY DOLLARS WILL DO. Forty dollars is the amount of a tuition scholarship in Atlanta University. Tuition is charged to all students and is paid by them whether a scholarship is assigned them or not. What then is the meaning of a tuition scholarship? Simply this: The rate of annual tuition charged to and paid by the students is merely nominal and covers only a small fraction of the actual cost. The tuition scholarship makes up, approximately, the difference between the nominal charge and the actual cost and thus enables the University to offer a rate of tuition which the average student is able to pay. There is nothing very peculiar in this arrangement. The situation is the same in all the large institutions of learning. No student of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, or Princeton pays the full cost of his tuition. He pays a fee, indeed, much larger than ours, but even that would have to be greatly increased were not his professors chiefly supported by the income from large endowment funds. As this income enables Yale or Harvard to charge its students a fee much less than the actual cost of their tuition, so the annual tuition scholarship enables Atlanta University to do the same thing. Of course it is understood that Atlanta University has no endowed chairs and only the most meagre beginning of a general endowment. When the adequate endowment comes, we can discontinue the tuition scholarships. General Armstrong once said to the writer with reference to raising money, "Divide and conquer." And so we divide by the number of our students the cost of our tuition that is not met by the students' fees and say that we need forty dollars for each student—not to release him from paying his moderate fee, which would not be good for him—but to make it possible for the University to charge him a fee that is within his means to pay. This process of division, too, yields a sum that is within the means of many donors to give; and when the gift of one donor can be made to minister, through the University, to the need of one student for one year, the personal relationship involved lends additional interest to the gift. Recognizing this personal element, each scholarship is assigned to a definite student who writes a letter of thanks and information to the donor. Friends, we have so far received only a small fraction of the number of forty-dollar scholarships needed for the current year. Can you not give one personally? Might not your Sunday-school class make up the amount for one—or the whole Sunday-school or church with which you are connected? Or the Endeavor Society or some other organization? Remember that in helping us to help these three hundred Negro boys and girls who are struggling to get their education you will be helping many thousands of still poorer and much more ignorant children and grown people whom these students will teach and help when they have been graduated. The veteran principal of one of the oldest and most important schools of the American Missionary Association, in a letter to a member of our Faculty, gives the following gratifying testimony regarding the worth of some of our graduates employed as industrial teachers in his school: "My dear Sir: I wish to express to you and through you to your associates at Atlanta University the satisfaction we have felt in having with us at LeMoyne during the past two years or more, two or three young men from your training. We gave Mr.-----up with great regret last month, but his work is taken up by Mr.-----without a jar or ruffle in the even surface of school affairs. These men, Messrs.-----and-----, and now Mr. -----, have proven good and loyal instructors and workers in the school and they have exhibited strength of character and an evenness of balance that has. given them a decided influence and standing in the school and community. I wish some other schools were half as fortunate in the type of men they send out." The Department of Economics, Atlanta University, has been authorized by William R. Merriam, the director of the 12th census, to prepare a special report of 50 pages on the Agricultural statistics relating to the Negro as returned by the census,

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Transcript

NUMBER 134. ATLANTA, GEORGIA. FEBRUARY, 1903. Suggestions. It is important to teach a Negro to work, so that he may earn a living. It is more important to teach him to think, so that he may want to earn a living. A thoughtful mind with unskilled hands is no less likely to earn a living than skilled hands owned by a thoughtless mind. Earning a living for the body is easier when earning a living for something more than the body is aimed at. The Negro who craves books, magazines, and pictures for his home is much more likely to possess a tight roof, a full pantry, and comfortable clothes than one who does not. Some Negroes are better fitted to earn a living with the brain than with the hand. Is it not worth while to teach such to work with their brain? About 2500 Negroes in the United States have had brain enough to work through and graduate from a college course. Statistics show that the college-bred Negroes of this country own on the average $2400 worth of real estate, assessed valuation, and probably $5000 worth of property all told, on the average. It would appear from these statistics that college-bred Negroes, as a class, are not paupers or loafers. Teaching a Negro to earn a living for himself, either by hand or brain, is a good thing. Teaching him how to help others to earn a living is a better thing. Over eighty per cent of the college-bred Negroes of America have found permanent employment in teaching and the professions. A single college class of seven members, graduated from Atlanta University, were found soon after their graduation to be helping as many as 2000 children and adults on their way to a better self-support. A single graduate of Atlanta University has improved the condition of a group of 3000 Negro farmers so that they now own property to an aggregate amount of three quarters of a million dollars. With such results as these, is it not worth while to support the higher education of the Negro? For statement of the work of Atlanta University see last page. WHAT FORTY DOLLARS WILL DO. Forty dollars is the amount of a tuition scholarship in Atlanta University. Tuition is charged to all students and is paid by them whether a scholarship is assigned them or not. What then is the meaning of a tuition scholarship? Simply this: The rate of annual tuition charged to and paid by the students is merely nominal and covers only a small fraction of the actual cost. The tuition scholarship makes up, approximately, the difference between the nominal charge and the actual cost and thus enables the University to offer a rate of tuition which the average student is able to pay. There is nothing very peculiar in this arrangement. The situation is the same in all the large institutions of learning. No student of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, or Princeton pays the full cost of his tuition. He pays a fee, indeed, much larger than ours, but even that would have to be greatly increased were not his professors chiefly supported by the income from large endowment funds. As this income enables Yale or Harvard to charge its students a fee much less than the actual cost of their tuition, so the annual tuition scholarship enables Atlanta University to do the same thing. Of course it is understood that Atlanta University has no endowed chairs and only the most meagre beginning of a general endowment. When the adequate endowment comes, we can discontinue the tuition scholarships. General Armstrong once said to the writer with reference to raising money, "Divide and conquer." And so we divide by the number of our students the cost of our tuition that is not met by the students' fees and say that we need forty dollars for each student—not to release him from paying his moderate fee, which would not be good for him—but to make it possible for the University to charge him a fee that is within his means to pay. This process of division, too, yields a sum that is within the means of many donors to give; and when the gift of one donor can be made to minister, through the University, to the need of one student for one year, the personal relationship involved lends additional interest to the gift. Recognizing this personal element, each scholarship is assigned to a definite student who writes a letter of thanks and information to the donor. Friends, we have so far received only a small fraction of the number of forty-dollar scholarships needed for the current year. Can you not give one personally? Might not your Sunday-school class make up the amount for one—or the whole Sunday-school or church with which you are connected? Or the Endeavor Society or some other organization? Remember that in helping us to help these three hundred Negro boys and girls who are struggling to get their education you will be helping many thousands of still poorer and much more ignorant children and grown people whom these students will teach and help when they have been graduated. The veteran principal of one of the oldest and most important schools of the American Missionary Association, in a letter to a member of our Faculty, gives the following gratifying testimony regarding the worth of some of our graduates employed as industrial teachers in his school: "My dear Sir: I wish to express to you and through you to your associates at Atlanta University the satisfaction we have felt in having with us at LeMoyne during the past two years or more, two or three young men from your training. We gave Mr.-----up with great regret last month, but his work is taken up by Mr.-----without a jar or ruffle in the even surface of school affairs. These men, Messrs.-----and-----, and now Mr. -----, have proven good and loyal instructors and workers in the school and they have exhibited strength of character and an evenness of balance that has. given them a decided influence and standing in the school and community. I wish some other schools were half as fortunate in the type of men they send out." The Department of Economics, Atlanta University, has been authorized by William R. Merriam, the director of the 12th census, to prepare a special report of 50 pages on the Agricultural statistics relating to the Negro as returned by the census,